It seems to be Mark Boal’s fate to consistently relive the plot of Almost Famous. He embeds himself with highly skilled professionals, reports what he sees, and is ultimately betrayed by those he reports on as they try to save face.
The CIA, almost perfectly playing the part of Stillwater—granting unprecedented access to a young journalist so he might “make them look cool,” then denying the story’s validity when they don’t like the final product—has all but confirmed the film’s accuracy. When the champions of disinformation go out of their way to denounce a film as being unrealistic, most thoughtful Americans conclude that the film’s content must be too accurate for the Agency to comfortably stand behind. But still, a litany of otherwise intelligent individuals have come to accept the organization responsible for the Bay of Pigs as a more effective source of truth than the team responsible for The Hurt Locker.
Acting CIA Director Micheal Morell’s comments regarding the film—he put out a press release in which he acknowledged that it was highly unusual for the Agency to act as film critics—makes three key points. The second point is an attempt to distance himself and his predecessors from enhanced interrogation, which is absurd enough not to merit or require a rebuttal. The third point addresses Agency incompetence—an area where Morell is hardly forthcoming. He asserts, in not so many words, that the attack on Camp Chapman was in no way the fault of the CIA, which means he thinks it was the fault of the troops guarding the base. Again, the American people are presented with a choice—trust the CIA, or trust the military. For most, this choice can be made without a second thought.
In an attempt to revise the personal and professional history of his former colleagues, Morell has implicitly insulted American military personnel on the highest level. Someone was responsible for the attack, and if it wasn’t the CIA, it had to have been the men and women in uniform—there was no one else on the base. It is Morell’s stated belief that pursuit and revelation of the truth matters less than honoring the memory of fallen spies—even if those spies’ actions cost the lives of American soldiers, and severely set back the hunt for bin Laden. But it’ s the first of his claims that’s probably most troubling. It centers on the idea that Maya (the CIA officer in ZDT who refuses to give up on the hunt for bin Laden, even when most of her colleagues shift focus) is an utter fabrication. According to Morell, the hunt for bin Laden was “a decade-long effort that depended on the selfless commitment of hundreds of officers.” He and his colleagues appear hell-bent on denying the fact that Zero Dark Thirty’s main protagonist—just like The Hurt Locker’s Will James—is indeed based on a real-life American hero. Morell would have the American people believe that everyone at the Agency was working tirelessly for a decade, and that’s why Seal Team Six was ultimately able to kill bin Laden; that no one’s priorities ever shifted, and that there is no real Maya.
Her name is Jen—surely not her real name, but Maya was probably not the protagonist’s real name, either—and she was also the inspiration for Homeland’s Carrie Matheson. After a number of her colleagues received awards commending their efforts leading up to the 5/1 strike, she reportedly sent them an e-mail and suggested that she was the only person at the Agency who deserved any credit. If Morell would like to embrace the tenets of disclosure to “disprove” the content of Zero Dark Thirty—which certainly backs up the claim made in the e-mail—the public would surely welcome it. Until then, the only tools available are first-hand accounts of the decade-long hunt—the basis of Boal and Bigelow’s film.